Identity
by LenaV
Summary: AU: Sam hasn't been a Winchester for twelve years now, and the ghost on the phone isn't going to change that. Elsewhere, Casper Steele struggles to accept that he may have been an angel in a previous life while possibly trying to prevent an apocalypse. Again.
1. 0

**a/n: Plot bunny that wouldn't leave me alone. If anyone is wondering, this went AU around season 6, so the story takes place around 2021.**

Sam fumbles with the phone. It's one of those new high-tech, touch screen ones, the kind Dean would've hated. Dean. He's hasn't thought of Dean for what, a week? It's a record. He's only beaten that during the Stanford years- but that's different. That doesn't count.

"Hello?" The number is unfamiliar. Probably a student, calling to ask what they missed in class the other day, or maybe advertising.

"Is this Sam Winchester?" The voice on the other side is too young to be a student. And Sam _Winchester_? He hasn't been a Winchester for years now.

"I'm afraid there has been some mistake." He lies smoothly. "My name is Samuel Plant, I teach Latin at the California University."

"You're Sam Winchester." The voice is insistent now. It belongs to a child- a boy, probably, though with the bad connection it's hard to tell.

"Uhhhh-" Sam is on the verge of hanging up and pretending this isn't happening, because he isn't a Winchester anymore. He doesn't do this anymore.

"Please, please, tell me you're Sam Winchester." The boy begs.

Sam doesn't know why -maybe it's because he's got a soft spot for children, now that he has two of his own, or because on some level he feels like he knows the speaker, but finds himself saying, "I was. A long time ago."

There's an exhale of relief on the other side. "You're real."

Maybe a fan of Chuck's books, one that bumped into the supernatural and made the connection? "Listen, kid, if you need a hunter, I can give you a number, but I'm out of the business now, and-"

There's a laugh on the other side, an impossibly old laugh that sends shivers down his spine. "You misunderstand."

And then Sam's fed up with the child. "Yeah, well then enlighten me."

"I need to find Dean."

"Dean is gone." A steely edge enters Sam's tone, but he can't help it. "Dean died, okay? Twelve years ago. Now if you need the number of a hunter, I'll give it to you. Otherwise-"

The boy interrupts again. "Twelve years ago. The angels fell twelve years ago."

"How do you know that?!" That wasn't in the books, not even the online parts. Most hunters haven't figured out what happened. Hell, Sam wouldn't be surprised if he's the only person alive who has the full truth.

He can hear the boy's breathing on the other end. "I should start at the beginning. I'm eleven years old. My name is Casper Jimmy Steele. It's Cas, though. Cas Steele. Yesterday, I learned demons were real. Today, I figured out I've always known demons were real."  
>Sam sucks in a breath. This isn't his life anymore. He can't let this be his life anymore. Nonetheless, he hears himself asking. "...Castiel?"<p>

"Hello, Sam."


	2. 1

**A/N: I know this was supposed to be a one shot, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I don't know where this is going in the long run, but be warned that as far as I have it planned out so far, Sam's kids (original characters) are probably going to play a large role. Also, both Castiel and Balthasar start out at eleven years old and with most of their memories gone, so the first few chapters they'll be a bit out of character. Especially Cas. Also, it's not beta'd. Read at your own risk.**

The knowledge that you are -or were- an immortal wavelength of celestial intent and that your current current existence is insignificant, nothing compared to the whole of the reality that the reality that you can almost remember, doesn't stop you from crying yourself out until you feel so numb you can't breath.

Casper knows that, because that's the first thing he does after the adrenaline leaves his blood. He's just finished talking to Samuel Winchester and now he's curled up in a small ball under the "MAC-MEA" fiction bookshelf in the teen section of the town library. He's crying for Mom and Dad and the random gas station guy who got caught in the crossfire. He's crying for the people taken by the black smoke, used by the black smoke. He's crying for Dean Winchester, too, even though he can't quite remember why Dean Winchester was so important. He's crying because he doesn't want to be an angel. He's in _fourth grade_ and he should be more worried about the school science fair than demons tracking down and killing his family while he realizes that he is millions of years old had something to do with an apocalypse.

When's he's done crying, Cas crawls out from under the shelves, blows his nose, wipes the mess of tears, snot, and blood of his shirt as well as he can, and heads over to the nearest computer. He finds himself googling names, people who he must somehow know but he remembers even less than Dean and Sam.

A Balthasar Nisoli, someone only four days younger than him, has gone missing after his parents have been found dead in their apartment. A girl close to their age, Rachel Spring, had been found and sent to an orphanage, described by the article as "eerie calm in the face of tragedy, as our children can be."

"Our children". Ha, ha. Finally, there is a mention of another boy named Samandriel, ten years old, shot and killed by a random stranger. His mother, who was present, described the attacker as having black eyes and smelling like bad eggs. Rachel, Samandriel and Balthasar were the only two others attacked, but Casper is sure, for some reason he can't explain, that there will be more.

He's glad now that he declined Samuel Winchester's offer of help. He needed to call to make sure Samuel was real. Now, he's got things to do. Like finding Balthasar. Balthasar is important. He is just not sure why yet. He closes his eyes for a second, making a list of what he knows.

a) He was angel. He has relatively clear memories of wings and grace and what can only be heaven.

b) All of the angels fell. That's a foggy, but painful memory. He remembers thinking something about rebirth as his grace and soul were ripped out of his body.

c) Dean Winchester was a friend. Castiel -who, while technically him, still remains generally an enigma in Cas's mind- had felt a ton of affection for Dean Winchester.

d) Samuel Winchester was Dean's brother.

e) There was a war. And something to do with the apocalypse. And Cas had been smack in the middle of it.

f) a complex Enochian exorcism

Cas searches through the article to find the location of the incident. Phoenix, Arizona. That's not too far away, considering that he is in Flagstaff. It's a stroke of luck, actually, bordering on a miracle. Hitchhiking is not an option, and he's too young to drive. Bus, then, remains to be the only option. Bus it is then.

He wonders if he can find a free route: he's got about ten bucks in his pocket because, in another life, he'd been saving up to buy that same cool yo-yo as Raph had. Eleven year olds aren't really supposed to play with yo-yos, but that had been a "professional performance" type, so it didn't count. Cas had always been quite good with his hands, anyway. Right, though, priorities. It didn't matter anymore.

What matters is figuring out a bus route: the cheapest way to go would take just over three hours, and he'd have to walk some, but he'll have a whole four bucks left for food.

The first of the six buses he needs leaves in thirty minutes, and then again in two hours. He doesn't have two hours, so he sprints the entire way there, arriving on the brink of time.

When he finally stops being able to hear his heart beat. His head hurts, which he suspects is because of dehydration and swollen sinuses due to crying for as long as he did and the general stress of the last few days. Huh. All of that feels far away now, like it's all underwater and he's trying figure out what's happening from the surface. No, he's underwater, and there are weights pulling him under and he can't see or feel or think, it's just cool, green water around him and surely it couldn't- couldn't hurt to- couldn't hurt to close his eyes for just a few…

-...-...-...-...-

_His wings, dappled grey and silver and white, stretch behind him. He always has wings when he dreams, which makes far more sense now. The fact that he's standing on ice, watching snow picked up and tossed about by the wind, wearing nothing but a blazer and trenchcoat, doesn't. But it's a dream, so things like that don't matter. He's never thought about how positively cool trenchcoats were, though. They're really, really cool._

_There are quiet footsteps behind him, and he doesn't need to turn to identify the newcomer: their grace brushes against his own, and he knows the other to be a friend. Grace is another thing that makes sense only when Casper is dreaming. _

"_Hello, Balthasar." Cas's voice is gravelly, low with barely contained power. Like he skipped health class and then smoked two packs a day for the last ten years, but hasn't gotten lung cancer and died yet._

"_Castiel." A man walked briskly towards him. He had a faint British accent, and wore a V-neck shirt. "What is it that is so confidential we meet on Earth, without anyone else here? You've mentioned you have a way to defeat Raphael, but you look rather bummed out about it."_

"_I am, as you would say, bummed out." Cas admits, meeting Balthasar's eyes. There's a bitter sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach. He doesn't think Balthasar would go along with his plan. He's upset at the prospect of fighting his friend, but not afraid to do so. "I must confess, at this point I've realized that defeating Raphael does not necessarily mean winning. I maintain this world to be worth the cost, but I don't know about the rest of us." _

"_What do you want to do?"_

"_The angels are the only ones with the power to restart the apocalypse. Maybe no one was meant to have that sort of power-"_

_Balthasar sucks in a breath and asks, interrupting, "You want to kill the angels?"  
><em>"_What?" Castiel feels puzzled by that statement. "No. Of course not. I just don't want them to have that power."_

"_And how would you accomplish one without the other?" Balthasar pushes._

"_I found a spell." Cas explains. "All of heaven, pushed out. Reborn in human bodies, with no power but free will. In the same manner as Annael did."_

_There's a silence. Any moment now, Balthasar will denounce his allegiance to Castiel, or simply attack him with an angel blade. The bitter feeling increases tenfold._

"_I must be insane," Balthasar says at last, and Cas feels a surge of hope, "But I will stand by you, brother."_

_Castiel must look as shocked as he feels, because Balthasar shrugs almost self-consciously. "In for a penny, in for a pound. Stop staring at me like that, Cassy."_

-...-...-...-...-

Casper wakes up in a far better state than he expected. The dull headache from before is still there, but so was the warm feeling of hope pulsing in his grace. _I'll stand by you, brother. _There's a familiarity about the words, but at the same time they feel so very foreign. The disagreement it cause him to feel is what makes the last word in the sequence so addictive.

_Brother, _Cas chants in his head, _brother, brother, brother._

And maybe it's silly, but when he gets off the bus, doesn't feel quite so alone anymore.


End file.
